Where do drug cartels’ guns come from: Texas or Central America?

The claim that Mexican cartels rely on huge stocks of military surplus weaponry from civil wars in Central America is the mantra of pro-gun organizations fearful that linking drug violence to U.S.-purchased weapons could lead to more gun control.

Though gun-rights advocates and at least one prominent U.S. senator ferociously stand by that politically charged theory, federal firearms data show only a tiny percentage originate south of Mexico’s border.

Guns captured by ATF. (AP photo)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and others have cited the Mexico-bound flow of weapons from firearms dealers in border states including Texas and California in arguing for restoring the expired federal assault weapons ban and other gun restrictions.

Gun violence in Mexico has led to nearly 40,000 deaths since the end of 2006 when Mexican President Felipe Calderon began a massive crackdown on the drug traffickers. Cartel weapons of choice from the U.S. include variations of military-type semi-automatic AK-47 and AR-15 rifles.

In response to a query from Feinstein, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported last month that of the 29,284 weapons recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing in 2009 and 2010, a total of 20,504 – 70 percent – were “United States-sourced firearms.’’ Virtually all of the remaining weapons were not traceable because insufficient information was submitted.

Those numbers have set off a firestorm of controversy at a time when ATF is defending itself against a widening congressional inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious, in which Phoenix-based ATF agents were instructed not to intercept straw purchasers buying weapons at local gun stores for the drug cartels.

The ATF’s aim was to follow the weapons to the higher-ups, instead of just arresting the low-level straw purchasers. But ATF lost track of the weapons, which ended up in Mexico and were implicated in various crimes, including the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who along with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is leading the congressional probe of Operation Fast and Furious, accused ATF of disseminating data that “paints a grossly inaccurate picture of the situation.’’

Weapons seized in Mexico and submitted to ATF for tracing represent only a small fraction of the 300,000-plus confiscated weapons that Mexican authorities keep locked up in a vault, Grassley said in a June 16 letter to ATF acting director Kenneth Melson.

“Further, there has been significant evidence in the media recently regarding the proliferation of weapons in Mexico smuggled out of Central America,’’ Grassley wrote.

ATF officials sent a response to Grassley but declined to release it.
A copy of the response obtained by Hearst Newspapers shows that of the 29,284 weapons in Mexico submitted for tracing, only 346 – one percent – were traced to a foreign firearms dealer, importer or military sale in any Central American country or Mexico, or any other nation besides the United States.

“There are no U.S. government sources that maintain any record of the total number of criminal firearms seized in Mexico,’’ said the response, signed by Melson.

ATF’s numbers “still don’t add up,’’ Grassley said in a statement. “The ATF has been misleading in its earlier portrayals of firearms data in correspondence with Congress, so they have a lot of explaining to do.”

But Eric Olson, coordinator of several gun-trafficking studies for the Mexico Institute at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, said the ATF information is consistent with his data.

The small amount of weaponry from Central America tends to be older military surplus from the 1980s and before, Olson said. A State Department cable from the WikiLeaks trove released earlier this year states that while most of the Mexican cartels’ “firearms’’ come from the U.S., most of the “military origin weapons – such as grenades and light anti-tank weapons’’ are from Central America.

Olson said weaponry may be flowing from Central America, but there is little verifiable data to substantiate types and quantities.

“There are things the U.S. can do to help Central America deal with its weapons issues, but look, we have clear and convincing evidence that high-powered weapons are being taken across the U.S.-Mexico border and used in gruesome crimes,’’ Olson said. “Our first order of business should be to stem the flow of weapons in a legal, respectful way. It’s got to be a priority.’’

Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the Newtown, Conn.-based firearms industry trade group, countered that Mexico appears to be highly selective about the guns it submits for tracing. He contends that Mexico files requests mainly for guns likely to trace to U.S. outlets.

“Central America is awash with weapons sent there going back to `Contra’ days,’’ he said, referring to the U.S.-financed effort in the 1980s to topple Nicaragua’s leftwing Sandinista regime. “No one claims no guns have crossed the (U.S.-Mexico) border, but we just don’t think it’s of the magnitude that been reported and we don’t think re-establishing the assault weapons ban is the solution.’’